roses.

November 29, 2012 in General

The latest class of VerbTribe just ended. This week, I will feature on 37days the writing of VerbTribe members in this most recent class. These excerpts are in response to daily prompts the class provides, and I hope you will appreciate the voices of these writers. If you’re interested in becoming a VerbTribe member, go here for more information on the next class that begins January 3, 2013.

Roses
-Lynne Adams

Smell the roses.
I can’t. Their only essence is the odour of betrayal.
Quite something. Six dozen. Long-stemmed.
Do you know how big that is? Could hardly fit through my door.
Bright and glorious. Red. Pink. White with pink hearts.
Splashes of colour to mask the lies.
The sum of these velvety petals does not come near
the total of my heart’s shattered pieces.
The roses are beautiful though. And innocent. As I was.
They don’t know they’re part of a hurtful dance.
They’re just here. To remind me of his twisted attention.

A carpet of roses could not make me forget he’d invited a ‘new love’ into his life,
advised me to ‘stay away from them’ as it was all so ‘fragile and new’.
Huh?
I could not run far enough away in the other direction.

And yes, there was a bit of rage on my part.
But like a good girl, I kept it to myself. Confined it to endless pages of my journal and copious Kleenex.
I am an adult who can function and carry on through her day no matter how much scotch-tape is on her heart. That’s what waterproof mascara is for.

Time. Give it time everyone said.
I wanted to give it an enema.
And flush his venom from my system.

Till I saw the words ” Anger is like drinking poison, and then expecting the other person to die”.

Here I was poisoning myself with my own pain.
So I slowed the drip-line of anger into my soul,
drop by drop, day by day,
Till I could breathe again without those heart-shards slicing through my chest.
And I felt good.

Then his new girlfriend dumped him.
And I got the “I’m sorry, forgive me” letter
And a bouquet too big for my house.

My ex lives on another planet
Where roses have no odour.
What a sad place to be.

I’m so glad I’m not there anymore.

(Dead Roses Photo by Rich Legg)

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

2 comments to " roses. "


Glen McCallum

November 29, 2012 AT 12:02PM

I feel the emotions of this author as I read her poem. It’s beautiful.

Liesl Garner

December 1, 2012 AT 12:54AM

Breathtaking. Gorgeous. Powerful. Raw. I am so happy for the author who realized that anger doesn’t hurt the other person. I love that quote “Anger is like drinking poison, and then expecting the other person to die”.

Wow.